


do not go gentle into that good night

by chancellorxofxtrash



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Platonic Relationships, Revenge Children Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:27:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26634325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chancellorxofxtrash/pseuds/chancellorxofxtrash
Summary: A kid, few years younger than Edo, living at the orphanage Edo frequents. A kid who doesn't like duelling, has bright green eyes, and the two of them might have more in common than they think.Or: Edo might or might not encourage another revenge child to start his path, and it might or might not be an accident.
Relationships: Fujiki Yuusaku & Edo Phoenix | Aster Phoenix
Comments: 10
Kudos: 38





	do not go gentle into that good night

**Author's Note:**

> You can't give me two vicious revenge children and expect me to not write something about them.
> 
> Is the orphanage Edo is helping out with in Japan in the first place? Shhhh, it is now. Don't worry about it.
> 
> There might be some ships implied here, but it's all up to your interpretation.

Edo knew the kids at the orphanage.

All of them had stories, and none of them were happy. Of course if their stories would have been happy, they wouldn’t have been there in the first place.

All of them had their own tragic stories, but when Edo showed up, they learnt how to smile.

“You give them hope,” One of the caretakers had told Edo. “You give them hope that even from the most bleak situations, there is a way out.”

“Are you saying they look up to me?”

“Obviously. To them, you are a hero.”

Edo couldn’t stop the small smile from appearing on his lips, upon hearing that.

But there was one kid.

Well.

Kid was probably not the best description - he was probably a few years younger than Edo, lanky and skinny, and extremely quiet. Edo had seen him from the beginning, from the first time he started to visit and donate his earnings, but he probably didn’t hear him say more than three words in one go.

Edo usually could not stay long, and got overwhelmed by the sea of children who were all hanging on his every word.

That one kid wasn’t, and truth to be told, he didn’t make note of it the first two times. A scrawny young teen with a shadowy presence - easy to miss.

Easy to hide.

The kids loved to do mock-duels with them - he would use freshly opened packs, and guide them through it, just to give them a chance at feeling better.

They didn’t duel with duel disks and solid vision or with other tech that was already taking off, they didn’t have the means for that there, and they wouldn’t accept _that_ much donation from Edo - they preferred money for food and clothes and education, after all. So they duelled the old-school way: on a table, putting their cards down on the mat.

That kid never joined.

Truth to be told, he was always in the room - but sitting in the corner, his nose usually in a book or in his second-hand tablet he probably got as a gift from someone.

“Don’t you want to join in?”

The kid looked up at Edo - he had bright green eyes, and the caretakers gasped at the same time, as if Edo had just insulted everyone’s dead parents, his own included.

“Edo!” One of them even gasped his name, and Edo just continued, not looking away from the kid.

“You are always here, but never join in.”

“I don’t duel.”

The kid’s voice was simple and resolute.

“But you are paying attention.”

“Hard not to.”

“So what do you think?”

“I don’t think that matters.”

“I asked you, so I would like to know.”

“Right, Fujiki!” Edo’s current opponent straightened his back, and gestured for the kid to come over. “Look! I’m about to win. I attack you directly!”

The kid closed his book, and just walked closer to the table, looking over all the set cards.

“No you aren’t.”

“Huh?”

“You won’t win because of three reasons,” The kid started, eyes not moved from the board. “One. You attack directly, and he has one set card. Two. He also has a card in his hand, which also can be something used against you. Three. You are simply a fool, and Edo Phoenix isn’t.”

Edo’s opponent was gaping, and Edo himself smirked a little.

“Now, now. Fujiki, was it? Was there any need to put it like that?”

“You asked for my input. You got it. Are you going to open your set card then?”

And Edo did.

Magic Cylinder.

And Fujiki turned away, and walked off.

~*~

“His name is Yusaku Fujiki, and… it’s a miracle he even went close to your duel enough to comment on it. He never does. I don’t know what happened to him exactly… when he was just six years old, he was kidnapped. They found him six months later. Had been very withdrawn ever since. Communicates more since he had therapy, but he had been like this for a while now.”

That’s all what one of the caretakers said, before Edo went to look for him.

He found Yusaku in one of the back rooms, his nose back in his book, and his green eyes focusing on Edo - before looking back at his book.

“I’m not interested in any more duels.”

“Yes, I gathered that. You have a sharp eye for them, though.”

“Not exactly. Even an idiot could understand what a stupid decision it was to run headfirst into a direct attack and a set card without a way to negate trap cards. One doesn’t need to be terribly good at it to understand that.”

“It’s also not very nice to call your peers idiots,” Edo smirked a little. “They are still learning to duel, you know.”

“And you still opened a Magic Cylinder on a rookie.”

“It was a valuable lesson, wasn’t it?”

Yusaku barely even reacted, and Edo just leaned back against the wall, looking at the kid.

He was thin, not terribly so, but slightly more than the other orphans - Edo knew they had enough food, so that wasn’t an issue. His hair was messy and sticking into multiple directions, and his green eyes fixed on the book still - but he was clearly not focusing on it, no doubt finding Edo’s presence too annoying to keep focusing on the book.

“Can I take a wild guess and say that whatever happened to you had something to do with duelling?”

“Why would you ask that if you already took a guess?”

There wasn’t much sharpness in Yusaku’s voice - if anything, he was guarded. Distant.

As if he had spent the past years building walls around himself.

(Which he probably did.)

“So what do you plan to do about it?”

Yusaku finally looked up, and his green eyes were so _empty,_ and there was a _familiarity_ in them, a feeling that Edo could not shake off, not since he had first seen him.

“What do you mean?”

“Is this your entire plan? Sitting around in the orphanage, building walls around yourself and pretending to read when someone reaches out to you?”

Yusaku put down his book, not looking away from Edo.

“You have no idea what you are talking about.”

“No,” Edo agreed. “But if you don’t try to do anything, nothing will change.”

“Do what? Talk with you? Duel you?”

“Not necessarily,” Edo shrugged. “Not to me, not with me, but anyone you can trust. That’s the first step. If you dare to take it, that is.”

And with that, he pushed himself away from the wall, and left the room.

~*~

“I looked into the incident you asked me to look into. Why are you interested in this anyway?”

“No reason.”

“Like hell I will believe that. If you want me to look into some weird crime from almost ten years ago up, better give me an actual reason for it.”

“Something happened to a kid at the orphanage. I would like to know what happened.”

Manjoume glanced up to him, while Edo was leaning on the back of his chair, and then Manjoume sighed, and looked back at the screen.

“Finding a kindred spirit?”

“You are ridiculous.”

“Yeah, sure. I’m not the one investigating.”

“Actually, you are.”

Manjoume scoffed, scrolling through the computer.

“Hard to tell. It seems like around eight years ago, six children disappeared, and then recovered six months later. Not much else is known, no headline news, nothing. These news were basically… footnotes.”

Edo narrowed his eyes.

“Not even the Manjoume Group knows?”

“Nope,” Manjoume shook his head, frowning. “This is something outside of the Group’s reach. Which is weird. Not many things are.”

“What would be?”

“Huh?”

Edo looked down and his eyes met with Manjoume’s confused expression.

“Who is it that could hide information from the Manjoume Group!”

“There are a lot of powerful industries, you know!” Manjoume snapped. “KaibaCorp probably has secrets. So does Industrial Illusions. Or SOL Technologies. Or a criminal group with very hidden data. _Any_ of them could do it.”

“So the Manjoume Group isn’t _that_ influential, huh.”

“Hey! Just because they aren’t involved in the seedy child-kidnapping business it doesn’t mean they aren’t influential.”

Edo smirked, and just messed up Manjoume’s hair with one hand, which just caused Manjoume to be even more visibly annoyed.

That said, Manjoume’s amusing annoyance notwithstanding, he wasn’t anywhere closer to solving this mystery.

“Please do not create another vengeful child like you.”

Edo looked back down at Manjoume, raising his eyebrows.

“If anyone is creating one, that’s the ones who kidnapped him, and who knows what have they done to him there, leaving him traumatized. That has nothing to do with me.”

“He doesn’t need encouragement to be self-destructive like you are.”

“I am not self-destructive.”

Manjoume reached out and grabbed Edo’s hand - and Edo hissed, yanking his hand away.

“Right. Bullshit,” Manjoume’s eyes had a victorious glint in them. “I’m going to tell Emeralda to cut back on your Meet&Greets.”

“Need I remind you, you aren’t my assistant anymore?”

“And yet you are making me do research.”

“And you are doing it free of charge,” Edo smirked. “What does that make you?”

Really, all these years of knowing Jun Manjoume, and it was still very easy to tick him off when you knew where to poke him.

~*~

“You aren’t going to ask me what happened?”

Edo found Yusaku again in the same back room, this time he was the one who spoke up first, his green eyes fixed on Edo.

And Edo shrugged.

“Are you going to tell me?”

Yusaku pursed his lips.

“Maybe you already know. All influential and everything.”

“Maybe I would want to hear it from you.”

“Maybe I don’t want to tell you. Maybe I want to forget it.”

Edo raised his eyebrows.

“Can you?”

Those bright green eyes were fixed on Edo, and in those green eyes he saw ----

_The room with the scattered cards, and the unmoving figure._

Those eyes had seen horrible things.

“You were six, right?”

“Why?”

Edo let a wry smile appear on his lips.

“I was five when I found my father’s dead body, and nobody could figure out who did it.”

Silence. Yusaku didn’t look away.

“So what did you do?”

“I swore I would find out who killed him, and make them pay.”

“Did you find out?”

“Yes.”

_DD’s laughter, so much crueler than he had ever been before, the heat, the way Bloo-D spread its wings, the voice of---_

“And what did you do?”

The wry smile turned to a grin, ignoring the sting in his chest.

“I burnt that son of a bitch alive.”

~*~

“You didn’t just say that to a kid! You did _not!”_

“It’s not like he is a _kid_ kid,” Edo shrugged, keeping the phone by his ear. “He is the same age as I was when I met you.”

“Fifteen years old is pretty much a kid, Edo.”

“You already saved the world when you were fifteen.”

“Not every kid should be like me!”

“Also he hadn’t been a child for a while, Judai.”

There was silence on the other side of the phone, and then a sigh.

“You think it was that bad?”

“Bad enough to force him to grow up already, yes.”

“...hey, Edo?”

“Yes?”

“...do you feel better? After getting your revenge. Does it feel better?”

Hearing Judai’s question he leant back, staring up at the ceiling.

The heat of the fire, DD’s scream, the explosion.

The weight on his shoulders for most of his entire life.

“I wouldn’t have rested until I got that, you know that.”

“And that’s not what I asked, you know that.”

“My only regret is not knowing the culprit was that close to me all along.”

“Do you think something like revenge would help that kid? You really think that, Edo?”

“I think…” Edo started, trailing off a little, thinking of Yusaku’s bright green eyes. “I think that’s something he needs to decide for himself.”

“But you planted the seed in his head, you know that, right?”

Yeah.

Edo was aware of that.

And he didn’t even need to reply to Judai to know that Judai also knew that.

~*~

Yusaku Fujiki left the orphanage.

One day, when Edo was visiting, Yusaku was gone.

“He said he is going to Den City,” One of the caretakers said. “He was always smart about this whole digital thing, and they have the best programming courses. Also Link VRAINS is easier to access from there, I assume, although it is quite a new thing… I wonder if it will catch on.”

“Duelists like to evolve,” Edo said with a smile, turning towards his car. “I’m sure it will be popular.”

“Maybe we will see you in virtual duels as well, Edo?”

“Maybe,” Edo shrugged, climbing into the car. “Who knows?”

Actually, it did not sound a horrible idea for his future plans.

But that depended on a lot of things.

While going through the city, Edo was looking out the window, and--- saw a familiar figure.

A familiar figure in a hoodie and a backpack, as if those were his only possessions, walking forwards, eyes set in the distance.

“Stop the car.”

“Huh? Edo---”

“I said stop it!”

The car stopped, and Edo opened the car’s door, leaning out.

“Want a ride?”

Yusaku stopped on his tracks, their eyes meeting.

“I can go to the train station on my own.”

“I know you can. That’s not what I asked.”

For a few moments, Yusaku was quiet - and then started moving, and Edo pulled himself back inside, and Yusaku climbed in.

“Take our guest to the train station, okay?”

Yusaku was silent, holding his backpack in his lap, looking down.

“Are you here to talk me out of it?”

“Talk you out of what?” Edo rolled his eyes, fixing his hair behind his ear. “Of going to Den City to study programming? The future is in that. You can pick a really good career out of that.”

“You know exactly what I mean.”

“No I’m not here to talk you out of it,” Edo said simply.

“Because you didn’t listen either?”

“Nobody really _tried_ to talk me out of it. But no I wouldn’t have listened.”

“Do you have regrets?”

“You are the second person to ask me that lately.”

“That was not an answer.”

“I have regrets but none concerning my path that I pursued. Is that enough of an answer for you?”

Yusaku didn’t reply, and Edo just looked at him - he wasn’t that much younger than Edo, but he almost looked older than he was, eyes fixed in the distance.

“You just need to be clear about what you want.”

“I want three things.”

On that, Yusaku’s voice cleared, as he raised his fingers, counting.

“One. The same thing as you wanted,” _Revenge._ “Two. Answers. Three. There was someone there who helped me. A friend who is still there. I need to help him.”

“A friend?”

“I wouldn’t have made it through without him,” Yusaku said, lowering his hand. “I need to find him and help him now. The one person who talked to me. Without him, I wouldn’t have had the strength to carry on.”

“Like if someone held an umbrella above your head in the pouring rain.”

Edo heard himself saying those words, and Yusaku looked up at him, and slowly nodded.

“Yes. Yes, something like that.”

They arrived at the train station, and Yusaku climbed out of the car.

“Yusaku.”

Edo leaned out after him, and the kid stopped, glancing behind his shoulder.

He wondered what he should have said, what he shouldn’t have told him.

“Once you start, you won’t have the option to turn back anymore.”

“Are you trying to talk me out of it after all?”

“No,” Edo shook his head. “I just want you to know what’s ahead.”

“You talk like I ever _had_ the option to turn back.”

And with that, Yusaku faced forward, and disappeared in the crowd.

Edo was absolutely sure this won’t be the last time he heard about him.

~*~

“So you created another vicious revenge child. Good job.”

To Ryo’s credit, compared to Manjoume's judgemental tone or Judai's bafflement, he was more amused than anything else.

“I did not create him,” Edo snapped back, crossing his legs while taking a sip out of his tea, frowning. “His world had stopped when he was kidnapped, and he was in desperate need to restart it. Sooner or later he would have started on this path either way.”

“Oh so you just gave him a helpful push and then abandoned him, is that it?”

“If he needs help, he will know how to find me.”

“Did you tell him that?”

“I think he knows.”

“And will you help him if he does?”

Edo thought of Yusaku’s face - the closed off green eyes that became full of determination. The way his eyes instantly assessed the duelling field, his sharp and precise words. The way he kept everyone at arm’s length.

He remembered the pain in his chest, the way the anger fuelled him, how it felt to have so much anger he needed an _outlet_ for it, and he still didn’t stop because that was just a _part of him_ now, and he thought of the feelings he felt when he got saved from the exploding ship, leaving DD behind.

The pain, the betrayal, the _anger._

The relief.

“If he would need my help, I would.”

Ryo scoffed, rolling his eyes.

“You are still sentimental and soft. Seeing yourself in him?”

“Yes,” Edo replied without a beat. “I do not know exactly what he went through but I can understand what drives him. So yes. Yes I do.”

~*~

In fact, Edo did end up going to Link VRAINS for some events - he did not pick a too different avatar for himself to do so. Why bother? Everyone knew he was Edo Phoenix, and if he was gonna go for some duelling events or fan meetings, he wanted to be recognizable.

But sometimes, he would enter through a second account.

A second account that would still give him a white outfit, and covered his face, and generally a look that let him blend in better.

(There were some criminals to fight there as well.)

And there were the duelists who were mostly famous inside Link VRAINS - Blue Angel and Go Onizuka with their vibrant styles and entertaining personas, and watching them Edo wondered if charisma duelling would be the way even Pro Leagues might evolve to. At this point most Leagues sneered at charisma duelling and especially speed duels, calling it a “bastardization of ancient techniques”, and all of that.

Edo found that viewpoint hilarious, seeing as if they had wanted to follow ancient techniques, they should have kept playing with stone tablets.

And there was Playmaker.

Playmaker with a much simpler avatar, and sharp precision, vicious and unforgiving - hailed as a hero by a lot of people, and a vigilante by others, and it seemed like he was hunting down the Knights of Hanoi for sport.

(He probably wasn’t doing it just for that.)

~*~

It wasn’t until later that Edo ended up going to Den City for an event, and on the plaza, where the autograph signing was going to be held was a hot dog stand.

And inside the hot dog stand, a very familiar figure, and Edo immediately walked that way.

“Edo!”

He heard Emeralda’s voice, but he just gestured a little with his hand.

“Will be back in a bit. I have a craving.”

When he walked up, Yusaku did not look very surprised.

“Long time no see,” Edo said, tilting his head. “I figure you don’t sell tea?”

“Indeed,” Yusaku nodded. “We do, but probably not the type you drink.”

“Give me one either way. So. How’s life for you?”

He wasn’t exactly asking about schoolwork, or his job at the hot dog stand.

And Yusaku knew that.

“It’s going well.”

“Really? I heard the Knights of Hanoi disappeared from the network.”

There was a glint in Yusaku’s eyes, as he pushed the paper cup that no doubt contained his tea.

He didn’t even ask what kind of tea it was.

(Did he really want to know?)

“I got what I came here to do.”

“Really? All three things?”

Yusaku nodded.

“Yes. I got the answers. I got retribution. And my friend…” Yusaku’s face became a little clouded. “...he needs to find his own path now. But he is alive.”

“I see,” Edo said, taking the paper cup, and looked under the lid, and at the dubious brown liquid, before fishing out some money from the pocket to pay for it. “So life calmed down for you, I figure?”

“Yes,” Yusaku nodded. “It’s all over now.”

He remembered having his revenge fulfilled and Saiou saved. And he remembered Judai, and how he could not abandon him, no matter what. He remembered the Dark World, and----

“You made connections, I figure? Not just your friend, but others too?”

Yusaku looked taken aback.

“...yes. Yes I guess you could say that.”

“I see. Then thinking it’s all over is naive.”

“What do you mean?” Yusaku sounded defensive, and Edo just shrugged, sniffing into the tea a little. The smell wasn’t very promising.

“If you have strong bonds like the ones that can help you finish your revenge, and help you save a friend… then those strong bonds will inevitably pull you into other events as well. So be prepared for that.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m just saying don’t be complacent. You started on this road now. There is no turning back. Either you run from it or you embrace it.”

There was no answer, and Edo just took a name card from his pocket, and handed it over to Yusaku.

“...why are you giving me this?”

“Well, if you will feel like using this, you will know why.”

And with that, he walked off.

And ended up giving his tea to Emeralda, without even tasting it.

~*~

Yusaku did not call him, when the next crisis happened in Link VRAINS.

Edo figured it was his choice. Not like he said to call him no matter what.

It was Yusaku’s choice and judgement, and by the end of it, it seemed like Yusaku and his team handled it.

There was also a weird shift in the management of SOL Technologies too that Edo was vaguely aware of.

And then - and then Playmaker was gone from Link VRAINS.

And Edo’s phone actually rang.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
